The P323L substitution in the SARS-CoV-2 polymerase (NSP12) confers a selective advantage during infection
Authors: Hannah Goldswain, Xiaofeng Dong, Rebekah Penrice-Randal, Muhannad Alruwaili, Ghada T. Shawli, Tessa Prince, Maia Kavanagh Williamson, Jayna Raghwani, Nadine Randle, Benjamin Jones, I’ah Donovan-Banfield, Francisco J. Salguero, Julia A. Tree, Yper Hall, Catherine Hartley, Maximilian Erdmann, James Bazire, Tuksin Jearanaiwitayakul, Malcolm G. Semple, Peter J. M. Openshaw, J. Kenneth Baillie, J. Kenneth Baillie, Malcolm G. Semple, Peter J. M. Openshaw, Gail Carson, Beatrice Alex, Petros Andrikopoulos, Benjamin Bach, Wendy S. Barclay, Debby Bogaert, Meera Chand, Kanta Chechi, Graham S. Cooke, Ana da Silva Filipe, Thushan de Silva, Annemarie B. Docherty, Gonçalo dos Santos Correia, Marc-Emmanuel Dumas, Jake Dunning, Tom Fletcher, Christoper A. Green, William Greenhalf, Julian L. Griffin, Rishi K. Gupta, Ewen M. Harrison, Julian A. Hiscox, Antonia Ying Wai Ho, Peter W. Horby, Samreen Ijaz, Saye Khoo, Paul Klenerman, Andrew Law, Matthew R. Lewis, Sonia Liggi, Wei Shen Lim, Lynn Maslen, Alexander J. Mentzer, Laura Merson, Alison M. Meynert, Shona C. Moore, Mahdad Noursadeghi, Michael Olanipekun, Anthonia Osagie, Massimo Palmarini, Carlo Palmieri, William A. Paxton, Georgios Pollakis, Nicholas Price, Andrew Rambaut, David L. Robertson, Clark D. Russell, Vanessa Sancho-Shimizu, Caroline J. Sands, Janet T. Scott, Louise Sigfrid, Tom Solomon, Shiranee Sriskandan, David Stuart, Charlotte Summers, Olivia V. Swann, Zoltan Takats, Panteleimon Takis, Richard S. Tedder, A. A. Roger Thompson, Emma C. Thomson, Ryan S. Thwaites, Lance C. W. Turtle, Maria Zambon, Hayley Hardwick, Chloe Donohue, Fiona Griffiths, Wilna Oosthuyzen, Cara Donegan, Rebecca G. Spencer, Lisa Norman, Riinu Pius, Thomas M. Drake, Cameron J. Fairfield, Stephen R. Knight, Kenneth A. Mclean, Derek Murphy, Catherine A. Shaw, Jo Dalton, Michelle Girvan, Egle Saviciute, Stephanie Roberts, Janet Harrison, Laura Marsh, Marie Connor, Sophie Halpin, Clare Jackson, Carrol Gamble, Daniel Plotkin, James Lee, Gary Leeming, Andrew Law, Murray Wham, Sara Clohisey, Ross Hendry, James Scott-Brown, Victoria Shaw, Sarah E. McDonald, Seán Keating, Katie A. Ahmed, Jane A. Armstrong, Milton Ashworth, Innocent G. Asiimwe, Siddharth Bakshi, Samantha L. Barlow, Laura Booth, Benjamin Brennan, Katie Bullock, Benjamin W. A. Catterall, Jordan J. Clark, Emily A. Clarke, Sarah Cole, Louise Cooper, Helen Cox, Christopher Davis, Oslem Dincarslan, Chris Dunn, Philip Dyer, Angela Elliott, Anthony Evans, Lorna Finch, Lewis W. S. Fisher, Terry Foster, Isabel Garcia-Dorival, Philip Gunning, Rebecca L. Jensen, Christopher B. Jones, Trevor R. Jones, Shadia Khandaker, Katharine King, Robyn T. Kiy, Chrysa Koukorava, Annette Lake, Suzannah Lant, Diane Latawiec, Lara Lavelle-Langham, Daniella Lefteri, Lauren Lett, Lucia A. Livoti, Maria Mancini, Sarah McDonald, Laurence McEvoy, John McLauchlan, Soeren Metelmann, Nahida S. Miah, Joanna Middleton, Joyce Mitchell, Shona C. Moore, Ellen G. Murphy, Jack Pilgrim, Will Reynolds, P. Matthew Ridley, Debby Sales, Victoria E. Shaw, Rebecca K. Shears, Benjamin Small, Krishanthi S. Subramaniam, Agnieska Szemiel, Aislynn Taggart, Jolanta Tanianis-Hughes, Jordan Thomas, Erwan Trochu, Libby van Tonder, Eve Wilcock, J. Eunice Zhang, Lisa Flaherty, Nicole Maziere, Emily Cass, Alejandra Doce Carracedo, Nicola Carlucci, Anthony Holmes, Hannah Massey, Lee Murphy, Sarah McCafferty, Richard Clark, Angie Fawkes, Kirstie Morrice, Alan Maclean, Nicola Wrobel, Lorna Donnelly, Audrey Coutts, Katarzyna Hafezi, Louise MacGillivray, Tammy Gilchrist, Kayode Adeniji, Daniel Agranoff, Ken Agwuh, Dhiraj Ail, Erin L. Aldera, Ana Alegria, Sam Allen, Brian Angus, Abdul Ashish, Dougal Atkinson, Shahedal Bari, Gavin Barlow, Stella Barnass, Nicholas Barrett, Christopher Bassford, Sneha Basude, David Baxter, Michael Beadsworth, Jolanta Bernatoniene, John Berridge, Colin Berry, Nicola Best, Pieter Bothma, David Chadwick, Robin Brittain-Long, Naomi Bulteel, Tom Burden, Andrew Burtenshaw, Vikki Caruth, David Chadwick, Duncan Chambler, Nigel Chee, Jenny Child, Srikanth Chukkambotla, Tom Clark, Paul Collini, Catherine Cosgrove, Jason Cupitt, Maria-Teresa Cutino-Moguel, Paul Dark, Chris Dawson, Samir Dervisevic, Phil Donnison, Sam Douthwaite, Andrew Drummond, Ingrid DuRand, Ahilanadan Dushianthan, Tristan Dyer, Cariad Evans, Chi Eziefula, Chrisopher Fegan, Adam Finn, Duncan Fullerton, Sanjeev Garg, Sanjeev Garg, Atul Garg, Effrossyni Gkrania-Klotsas, Jo Godden, Arthur Goldsmith, Clive Graham, Elaine Hardy, Stuart Hartshorn, Daniel Harvey, Peter Havalda, Daniel B. Hawcutt, Maria Hobrok, Luke Hodgson, Anil Hormis, Michael Jacobs, Susan Jain, Paul Jennings, Agilan Kaliappan, Vidya Kasipandian, Stephen Kegg, Michael Kelsey, Jason Kendall, Caroline Kerrison, Ian Kerslake, Oliver Koch, Gouri Koduri, George Koshy, Shondipon Laha, Steven Laird, Susan Larkin, Tamas Leiner, Patrick Lillie, James Limb, Vanessa Linnett, Jeff Little, Mark Lyttle, Michael MacMahon, Emily MacNaughton, Ravish Mankregod, Huw Masson, Elijah Matovu, Katherine McCullough, Ruth McEwen, Manjula Meda, Gary Mills, Jane Minton, Mariyam Mirfenderesky, Kavya Mohandas, Quen Mok, James Moon, Elinoor Moore, Patrick Morgan, Craig Morris, Katherine Mortimore, Samuel Moses, Mbiye Mpenge, Rohinton Mulla, Michael Murphy, Megan Nagel, Thapas Nagarajan, Mark Nelson, Lillian Norris, Matthew K. O’Shea, Igor Otahal, Marlies Ostermann, Mark Pais, Carlo Palmieri, Selva Panchatsharam, Danai Papakonstantinou, Hassan Paraiso, Brij Patel, Natalie Pattison, Justin Pepperell, Mark Peters, Mandeep Phull, Stefania Pintus, Jagtur Singh Pooni, Tim Planche, Frank Post, David Price, Rachel Prout, Nikolas Rae, Henrik Reschreiter, Tim Reynolds, Neil Richardson, Mark Roberts, Devender Roberts, Alistair Rose, Guy Rousseau, Bobby Ruge, Brendan Ryan, Taranprit Saluja, Matthias L. Schmid, Aarti Shah, Prad Shanmuga, Anil Sharma, Anna Shawcross, Jeremy Sizer, Manu Shankar-Hari, Richard Smith, Catherine Snelson, Nick Spittle, Nikki Staines, Tom Stambach, Richard Stewart, Pradeep Subudhi, Tamas Szakmany, Kate Tatham, Jo Thomas, Chris Thompson, Robert Thompson, Ascanio Tridente, Darell Tupper-Carey, Mary Twagira, Nick Vallotton, Rama Vancheeswaran, Lisa Vincent-Smith, Shico Visuvanathan, Alan Vuylsteke, Sam Waddy, Rachel Wake, Andrew Walden, Ingeborg Welters, Tony Whitehouse, Paul Whittaker, Ashley Whittington, Padmasayee Papineni, Meme Wijesinghe, Martin Williams, Lawrence Wilson, Sarah Cole, Stephen Winchester, Martin Wiselka, Adam Wolverson, Daniel G. Wootton, Andrew Workman, Bryan Yates, Peter Young, Stevan R. Emmett, Paul Digard, David A. Matthews, Lance Turtle, Alistair C. Darby, Andrew D. Davidson, Miles W. Carroll, Julian A. Hiscox
Journal: Genome biology (2023)

Abstract Background The mutational landscape of SARS-CoV-2 varies at the dominant viral genome sequence and minor genomic variant population. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an early substitution in the genome was the D614G change in the spike protein, associated with an increase in transmissibility. Genomes with D614G are accompanied by a P323L substitution in the viral polymerase (NSP12). However, P323L is not thought to be under strong selective pressure. Results Investigation of P323L/D614G substitutions in the population shows rapid emergence during the containment phase and early surge phase during the first wave. These substitutions emerge from minor genomic variants which become dominant viral genome sequence. This is investigated in vivo and in vitro using SARS-CoV-2 with P323 and D614 in the dominant genome sequence and L323 and G614 in the minor variant population. During infection, there is rapid selection of L323 into the dominant viral genome sequence but not G614. Reverse genetics is used to create two viruses (either P323 or L323) with the same genetic background. L323 shows greater abundance of viral RNA and proteins and a smaller plaque morphology than P323. Conclusions These data suggest that P323L is an important contribution in the emergence of variants with transmission advantages. Sequence analysis of viral populations suggests it may be possible to predict the emergence of a new variant based on tracking the frequency of minor variant genomes. The ability to predict an emerging variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the global landscape may aid in the evaluation of medical countermeasures and non-pharmaceutical interventions.